Crimson Tide

You’re more than a little worried that this is a blog about my menstrual cycle, aren’t you??

Relax, you’re dodging a bullet today. I’m actually referring to the 1995 movie of the same name, which I just stumbled upon while channel surfing.

I took my Dad to see it when it was out. My father had suffered a stroke during a science fiction surgery several years earlier and as a result was more than a little off behavior-wise. My Dad had been stationed on a nuclear submarine for four years in the late 60s and since Crimson Tide took place on a nuclear sub, he was tickled to see the movie.

I remember that and am happy that I was able to give him something enjoyable on those so very difficult days for him. But my fondest memory was the joy he had during the movie when he would recognize things or explain them to me. Unfortunately, thanks to the stroke’s effect on his behavior, he would yell these things to me and I had to keep shushing him so he wouldn’t disturb the other movie patrons.

And anyone who knew my father knows that was an incredibly strange position for me to be in!

My Dad was very much all about proper appearance and behavior while I was growing up. For reasons I won’t go into now, my grandmother tried to make my father perfect and my father tried to make me perfect. He would have been absolutely HORRIFIED if I had behaved the way he did in that movie theater when I was a kid!

I have to admit, at first I was a little embarrassed… But when I saw how happy he was and when I thought about how incredibly lucky I was that he had even survived his surgery to go to the movies with me, I could care less about how loud he was. This amazing man -- who had survived 31 hours of surgery over a two-day period and emerged blind in one eye, disfigured, and damaged by stroke -- went through it all so that he would have more time with us and so we wouldn’t have to go through the pain of losing him. And in doing so, he lost nearly everything that had guided him and been so important to him. He let go for us. I never loved him more than I did then.

Steam Cleaner 1, AJ 0

Monday's lurking around the corner, isn't it??

Oh well.

Twas a strange four-day weekend for me. Some great times, some not-so-great times, some misunderstandings, and some growing pains. But ultimately, some evolving as well, so that's AWESOME.

Alas, I was reminded once again tonight that I'm a bit of an idiot. I think one of the reasons I procrastinate on projects at home is because I know they always snowball into other issues. Voldemort and I had to replace a broken toilet bowl handle arm thingy one time and when all was said and done, we had replaced the toilet seal, reseated the toilet, painted the bathroom, and put down vinyl tile!

So when I decided to steam clean my Bodhi-victimized couch cushions around 6 o'clock tonight, I should have known something was going to come up. I haven't used my carpet cleaner in eons because I have hardwood floors here. The cleaner's been out in my garage for the last four years, just sitting idle. I brought it in the house, filled her up, and........discovered the upholstery attachment wasn't working. I futzed around with it a little bit and decided to check to see if the cleaner was working at all. But since I don't have any carpeting and didn't want to shoot water all over the floor, I put the upright cleaner on the couch cushion, and turned it on. It worked all right. But it also shot four years of muck and mire onto the cushion!

See, I'm an idiot.

I just shook my head and walked away. I did some other chores, added "go to Costco and buy upholstery cleaner" to tomorrow's To Do list, and then for the heck of it gave the upholstery attachment another try.

Well, something must have gotten jiggered because the darn thing came alive. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to clean those cushions in my lifetime, however. I'm thinking I'll have to buy some new upholstery foam and can hopefully wash the covers.

Anyone interested in a ten-year-old beagle mix with a propensity for urine leakage and vomiting??

Happy Sunday, all!

To be continued...

Oh, that's another thing! I finally bought a new modem and called my cable company to give them the new modem address. After 30 minutes on hold and 20 minutes of troubleshooting, I still don't have internet! Lo and behold, there's something going on with my internet connection. So it was never my old modem. And I've been paying 40 bucks a month for MONTHS for absolutely nothing!!

See, I'm a moron. :)

Queen o' Procrastination

Totally unproductive day. Hate days like this. Was supposed to be cleaning my tornado-victim house but only managed to futz around, do some laundry and drill through my DVR'd shows.

Phlagh.

I'm supposed to go to the movies tonight, but part of me thinks I should go to bed early, get up early tomorrow morning, and try again...

My last frustration was finding a photo I wanted to scan and blog about, but I was having internet issues again and could neither scan nor blog.

Phlagh.

Hope you all had a better day!

Until tomorrow...

Look Out!

Note to self: large quantities of beer and five hours of sleep before running 6.2 miles is not recommended.

Whoof.

Long day, my friends! Long, good day. The Turkey Trot was a struggle from start to finish and I was dragging most of the day, but I had a great dinner with great friends and their family and got to tickle the belly of the cutest little girl on the planet, so all is well.

Cutest Little Girl on the Planet heard her Uncle Don making a 'booping' noise and seemed a little startled by it. It sounded like the alarm large trucks make when backing up and I joked that she must have a fear of construction trucks. Which reminded me of a Grace story...

Grace is my dearly departed maternal grandmother. For most of my life, she drove a 1970-something green Chevelle. And teenage boys used to salivate over that thing. With a little tweaking, it would have been an awesome muscle car. It was a moderate-sized boat.

Her mechanic convinced her at some point that there was too much wrong with it for her to keep it alive. It had lived several lifetimes over because my grandmother rarely drove it faster than 25 mph. I can remember her giving me rides home from school and my friends walking past her car faster than she was driving...

Anyway, my grandmother and our neighbor, Keith, went off to find her a replacement. She was in her late 70s at the time, so they settled on an economical, compact car. I believe it was called the Pontiac Smurf. This thing was a Smart car before Smart cars were invented. It was essentially pocket-sized.

Noticing my grandmother's age, the dealer suggested a special accessory -- a literal bell and whistle, if you will. He installed an alarm on the back of the car that emitted a shockingly loud "boop boop boop boop" when she drove in reverse. It sounded exactly like the alarm on those giant trucks!

So my grandmother would be backing out of a parking spot at the grocery store, for example, and all of a sudden people would hear this alarm and start looking around for a huge truck to avoid. And instead what they'd find was this little old lady in her little blue car, moving at the speed of molasses.

I thought it was absolutely hysterical -- until I had to borrow her car to commute back and forth to college for a week or two. I drove around and around and around trying to find parking spots that wouldn't require me to put the car in reverse.

Boop boop boop boop...

So embarrassing!

PS -- Happy Thanksgiving, you turkeys!! Hope everyone had a great day. To be continued...

And for that, I am very thankful. ;)

May I Trouble You For a Cup o' Internet?

Crap! Phone blog; phone blog -- all hands on deck!

I really need to get my modem fixed or convince my neighbor to upgrade his wireless signal. I've been having a hell of a time glomming his internet lately... Fixing the modem seems the obvious choice since I've been paying for unused cable internet access all this time AND it's a wee bit illegal and ethically wrong to "borrow" my neighbor's.

Of course, if anyone in law enforcement is reading this, I'm just fabricating this whole story so I'd have a blog entry. Steal my neighbor's internet?? Pshaw! Nevvvvver...... Heh heh heh.

Please Send Chicken Soup

Greetings and salutations!

I'm feeling punky tonight and will have to keep this brief. I'm sorry... I've been feeling a little under the weather all day and I'm not sure if I'm getting something (sinus infection?) or if I'm just run down.

Bodhi took off like a shot at the donut run on Saturday and for about the first half mile she had me flying at about an 8 minute mile or so and that's just waaay too fast for me. Consequently, I was sucking wind and my poor asthmatic lungs weren't too happy about that. Add very little sleep this weekend, a bit of partying Saturday night (in and around cigarette smoke -- phlagh), and a rapid Sunday and I'm wiped out. Hope I'm not getting sick. Although I do have a tendency to do so when my doctor's office is closed, so that makes Turkey Day a good candidate!

I'm running a 10K Turkey Trot on Thursday, so I hope I'll be ok. I can't believe how quickly time is flying! I thought I had more than enough time to get up to a comfortable and regular 10-miler which would help condition me for the start of Shamrock training, but dang if time hasn't flown by! I really have to get started on my training. Another reason why I'm hoping I'm not getting sick...

Sorry for the fascinating blog post. :)

Hope you're all doing well and I'll catch you tomorrow.

Every Picture Tells a Story

What started as a great weekend has kind of devolved into my getting cranky and having a headache, so I'm not in a storytelling mood. Fortunately, yours truly and her faithful companion were in a picture accompanying a story of yesterday's donut run in our local newspaper this morning. Enjoy!

Turn on Your Hot Light

Has anyone else noticed that Bert has been suspiciously quiet this week? I'll have to shoot him an email...

Today was the big 2nd Annual Krispy Kreme Invitational here in Virginia Beach. I missed the first one two years ago and then last year's didn't happen because the organizer had some pithy excuse -- he was running from Maine to Florida to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House...

Anyway, I was very excited to be able to participate this year and more than a little nervous. The rules were simple enough: start at Mt. Trashmore in Virginia Beach. Run approximately 3 miles (it was more like 2.2-2.4) to the Krispy Kreme store (home of the infamous "Hot Donuts Now" sign). Purchase and eat 6 glazed donuts. Run back.

Runners could gain advantages by eating additional donuts and/or drinking pints of milk. However, any runners caught puking would be assessed a penalty.

Hence my nerves. I was pretty much convinced that I was gonna be a puker.

And now I can say that I'm a little disappointed that I didn't. Outside of dodging speeding cars while running across six lanes of traffic on a major thoroughfare and almost losing my dog (Bodhi ran with me!) in some primordial ooze underneath an overpass, the event was pretty darn tame. I did find myself stroking my belly and apologizing to it over and over again for the first hour after the race's completion.

To give you an idea of just how awful I felt, I didn't go out with everyone afterwards for beer.

I know!!

Tommy (the organizer) sent an email out earlier saying our next event is going to be a scavenger hunt and I know we've discussed a beer/hot dog run. I'm thinking we might be able to give the Nathan's hot dog eating contest a run for its money! Competitive eating events are sooooo boring. Throw some running in there!!

Still Crazy After All These Years

Unless you've been under a rock all week, you should be aware that Sarah Palin, Wasilla Barbie herself, is doing a huge tour this week for her new book, Going Rogue: An American Life.

And if you're from my hometown of North Plainfield, NJ, you're probably also aware that she apparently spends a good deal of the book pointing her moose hunting rifle at John McCain's former campaign manager, Steve Schmidt. One of Steve Schmidt's less mentioned points from his lengthy political resume is that he graduated a year behind me in high school.

His mom, who stumbled upon my blog last year and became a regular reader, is probably breaking out in a sweat right now. It's OK, Mrs. Schmidt. I promise. :)

She has good reason to be nervous. Someone in this room (and it's not my dog) went a little crazy last fall during the election and skewered her son often by posting unflattering news and blog stories about him, of which there were quite a few. Something about the liberal media or somesuch... ;)

BUT what I want to share with you guys today is this...

I was listening to our local radio station's "9-at-9" show this morning, in which a year is featured at 9:00 am and nine songs from that year are played. I get a little giddy when the year falls in the 70s because they were happy musical times for me. Today's year was 1976 and one of the songs was Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years -- and I was immediately transported to a charter bus in France in 1985, sharing a dual set of headphones and a single Walkman with none other than Steve Schmidt.

Steve and I both liked Simon & Garfunkel and I had brought along the cassette tape of their 1981 concert in Central Park on the trip. If I remember correctly, we spent about 80% of our tour of the Loire Valley on that bus. And Steve and I listened to that tape over and over and over and over again. We listened to it and laughed about different parts. Something about our English teacher Ms. Gannon being irritated by the line, "...all the crap I learned in high school; it's a wonder I can think at all..." We both got a little homesick every time we heard America and its mention of the New Jersey Turnpike. And I distinctly remember one or both of us falling asleep to the tape many times, resting our heads together or on each other's shoulders.

And so I'm glad a year has gone by and everything has settled down. I'm glad Steve's mom sent me an email and I had a chance to apologize. I'm glad Steve to this day doesn't know about my blog and has never read the posts from last fall. And I'm glad that enough time has passed that when I hear an old Paul Simon song, I can think back on my time in France with an old friend and just smile.

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you

Two X Chromosomes, No Waiting

Holy unrecognizable Jennifer Grey on New Adventures of Old Christine, Batman!

Sure, we've all known about her disfiguring nose job of many moons ago, but now thanks to some apparent Botox and over-tweezing of the eyebrows, I would not have known her were it not for her voice! Poor Baby...

This is going to be a hodgepodge, my friends.

A female coworker posited the following earlier today:

FC: "Jerry, I have a question. I need a man's opinion."
AJ: "Then why are you asking Jerry??"
FC: "Why is it men think it's appropriate to send pictures of naked women to other women?"
AJ: "I have no problem with that!"

This started a lively debate and by debate I mean, a bunch of wisecracks from me, Jerry, and Luke.

When the dust settled, we found out the real question should have been:

FC: "Is it appropriate for my brother-in-law to send me pornographic photos via text?"

Yes, seriously. Ah, good times!!

I helped out a friend today by babysitting her friend's daughter for about an hour while she had a doctor's appointment. Since it was a girl-child, with whom I almost certainly had nothing in common, versus a boy-child, with whom I not only have much in common but a lot of practice, I decided to shore up my entertainment reserves. I dug up some construction paper and markers and colored pencils and Jerry offered me a deck of cards. He suggested we play Go Fish and I had to admit that I didn't know how to play.

Yah, the joys of being an only child...

I have a vague memory of maybe my mother or grandmother playing Go Fish with me when I was really young, but I guess this is a skill set I just didn't retain. So around 4 o'clock this afternoon, Jerry, Anne, Don, and Leslie were teaching me how to play Go Fish. And I couldn't help but laugh when I had to ask follow up questions and ask them to repeat certain things. Who knew the game was so complicated?? How the hell do children learn how to play this thing?

Fortunately, the babysittee was quite content to play with some Legos at the doctor's office and then draw. We banged out a couple of hand turkeys (mine had a pink polka dot bikini which babysittee decided to copy on her second pass) and the time flew by. As best I can tell, she didn't know I was terrified of her. :)

More Tales from the Communal Shower

I made my triumphant return to the YMCA over lunch today and had a pretty good run. I've lost some weight recently and am actually running much faster than I should for the amount of running/conditioning I've done. Consequently, I can't really maintain the faster pace for very long. I kept telling myself to slow down over and over again so that I could get a longer distance in. Too funny. I have to really kick in my marathon training soon, so this could be interesting!

I got back to the Y after my run and was happy to be the only one in the communal shower. Please see Communal Shower Etiquette Lesson #1 for my earlier views on this matter.

Anyhoo, I was alone in the shower until a rather large woman walked in. And planted herself immediately next to me!! Once again, she had five other shower heads to choose from... Had I not already pushed mine off to the left a little bit, we would have definitely been crashing into each other during the course of our showers. WTF??

I began composing this little rant in my head and finished my shower. Just as I was turning off my faucet, another woman walked out of the steam room. I walked across the shower room to get my towel and began to towel off -- just in time to notice her turn on my shower head and start showering in my spot -- where my toiletries and puff were still present!

????!!!!

So I then had to walk over to this lathered up woman (again, of a hefty sort) and say, "Uh, excuse me, can I get my stuff?"

To which she responded, "Oh, it's OK..."

Gee, thanks for forgiving me for disturbing you!

What in the hell?

Toll Ahead! (What else would you expect from a Jersey girl?)

Have you guys been checking out the Google ads that pop up on the left side of the screen? They're generated by the content of my blogs (in case you haven't figured this out yet) and I have to laugh because the greater majority of the ads this week have been for mold and mildew removal.

Google knows I have a flooded crawl space!

My other recent favorites include ads for Swatch watches, Smurfs, and 70s television. Google, you may be my soul mate. :)

Gloria was under the impression that something had to be purchased through the ads in order for me to receive payment. This is in fact not true! All you fine folks have to do is click on those things and I get some semblence of payment. They won't disclose how much, so I'm assuming it's pennies per click. But, if you're so inclined, click away. I'm unsure of Google's screening, so be careful. I'd hate for anyone to contract a computer virus because of my greed. :)

This reminds me (albeit obliquely) of the brilliant idea I had while staying at my grandparents' house as a child. I tacked an envelope up on the bathroom door with a note indicating that it cost 10 cents to use the facilities. And my dear, dear grandfather, God bless him, paid to use his own bathroom. I can only imagine what he was muttering under his breath as he jingled the change in his pocket looking for a dime. Come to think of it, that incredibly kind and loving man, who had a never-ending amount of patience for me (which I unfortunately only realized in retrospect, after he was gone) probably put ten dimes in for each visit.

If you've ever seen the movie "Arthur," my grandfather bore a strong resemblence to John Gielgud's character in speech, mannerisms, and attire. My grandfather was known to wear a shirt and tie to mow the lawn. We have some pictures of him in the 70s when he fell victim to plaid pants and jackets and white belts and shoes, but for the most part he was one dapper dude.

Quick witted, a bit of a beer lover, and well spoken. It's been an honor to share his birthday and name. :)

Neither Christmas, Nor'easter

Ah, where to begin.............

Well, my head hurts a little bit. It's still raining here and the wind is blasting by every so often. It's the storm that doesn't know when to leave.

I finally looked under my house a couple hours ago and was more than a little shocked to see several feet of water -- especially since the crawl space is only several feet high. I'm a little surprised the water didn't start coming up through the floorboards! All I could think of was the retractable gym floor that reveals a swimming pool during the dance scene in "It's a Wonderful Life." I was tempted to go in the house, cut out a hole in the floor and start fishing.

I'm a little worried that my heating unit -- which has been submerged under water for who knows how long -- won't be operational even after I get all the water out. This would change my To Do list a little bit. The two leaks that sprung up during the storm helped me re-org the list as well. So theoretically, we're at: move heat pump, new roof, new windows, siding.

Does anyone happen to know of an elderly gentleman with quite a good deal of money, preferably in ailing health, with a penchant for tomboys??

I seem to have thrown a wrench in my personal life as well yesterday. It was a perfect storm all around. I just wonder when I'll truly understand myself and my motivations. I seem to see through everyone else pretty clearly and have such a low tolerance for BS but am a mess when it comes to myself. So it sucks for me that I've got a good friend of mine who can apparently see through all of mine. And by "sucks" I mean, "she calls me out on stuff." Ultimately, that's a good thing, but it makes me nauseated in the meantime. Hopefully I'll learn from all of this and she won't give up on me.

Guess that's it for now. They're insisting we play our kickball tournament tomorrow, so I have to run out early to get propane for my portable grill that is almost certainly going to sink into the mushy, muddy earth at the kickball fields. You'd think it was the Olympics for crying out loud. Half the league's members are without power or flooded in or out of their homes, but dangit, we're going to play some kickball!!

Until tomorrow, my friends.................

Wishing I Was in the Third Little Pig's House...

Greetings! I'm going to bang out a quick blog post to satisfy NaBloPoMo and then go back to my terrified praying.

A Nor'easter has been bearing down on us in the Hampton Roads area for three days and while the flooding hasn't affected me too much, the wind gusts up to 60 mph have me in a little panic. Oh wait, the flooding did affect my heat pump under my house and I don't have any heat. So Bodhi and I are freezing to death and while she seems pretty calm about the storm, I'm more than a little worried that a tree is going to fall on my house, a giant branch is going to come through a window, and/or the house itself is going to fly away, a la Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz...

And so, I say goodbye. Hopefully tomorrow's post will be happier. Hope everyone is safe and secure...

Smurftastic!

I'm unsure of the quality of this one. I haven't done much today and am desperately trying to get this down on...........well it's not paper. What do we call this?? Anyway, I'm trying to get this stuff down but my friends Jeff and Ruthanne are babbling in the same room with me and I'm having a hell of a time focusing on this.

Not much has happened today, what with the Nor'easter that's blown into town. I went out earlier to Costco and had a heck of a time traversing the streets o' Norfolk thanks to all the flooding.

Fortunately, pictures from the last race I ran were waiting for me in my email and this gem was included:

I guess this would be mildly funnier if the race wasn't on Halloween and the runners were encouraged to wear costumes... But regardless, my slow arse is being chased by a Smurf!! How fantastic is that??

I guess you fine folks don't know of my long-standing love affair with the Smurfs. It's okay, I'm a complex, multifaceted person. I don't expect you to know everything about me. Anyhoo, the Smurfs and I began our lopsided love affair back in the late 70s at The Thoughtfulness Cottage in Middlesex, NJ. At the time, my mother had an obsession with greeting cards and felt the need to visit a (Hallmark, of course) card store at least once a week to stock up on cards that she would ultimately forget to give to anyone. I'm not sure who spotted the Smurfs first -- me, my mother, or my cousin Lori. All I know is that Lori and I wound up in some sort of unspoken competition to collect Smurfs. So every week when my mother would drag me to The Thoughtfulness Cottage, she'd pick up one or two Smurfs for me. And since my grandmother was always with us, there was a good chance I'd get one or two out of her too.

Somehow, I wound up with 180 Smurfs. All shapes, sizes, and various sizes of mushroom houses (if you're not up on Smurf housing, it's ok). The gold mine occurred when my mother gave me about 50 one Easter, each one placed in a separate plastic Easter egg. The collection was so extensive that it was featured in the display case at our local library.

Yes, I realize how embarrassing that is.

My love of the Smurfs continued into the early 80s and extended to their TV show, a cassette tape of their collection of songs substituting most words with "Smurf" or "Smurfy," and my 7th grade Halloween costume. My poor mother banged that thing out the night before Halloween so that I could walk through the halls like a big blue goober. But I loved that costume.

Imagine my chagrin in discovering that I was being chased by one of my favorite things on the planet. Their 50th anniversary was last year and Mom sent me a commemorative Smurf package. Additionally, my good friends Anne and Don came back from Disney World with what was essentially "Drunky Smurf" -- a Smurf with a giant bottle of Champagne.

If only I had turned around. I'd love to know why dude man was dressed like a Smurf. Perhaps he was a kindred spirit. I'm bummed I didn't get the chance to find out, but am THRILLED that I have a picture of me at 40, being chased by a Smurf. :)

Morel of the Story

My bff Lauren and I were visiting a friend of hers in a neighboring college (Lehigh, I guess?) wayyyy back in the Stone Age when we were still in school. Lauren's friend Louise told us this silly little joke and when we got back to our school (Hell University), Lauren relayed it to our dorm mates:

"This mushroom walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a beer. The bartender says, 'I can't serve you, you're a mushroom!' And the mushroom responds, 'But I'm a fun kind of guy!'"


{crickets}



AJ: "You didn't get that joke, did you?"
Lauren: "No, no I didn't. That's why I told it. I wanted to see if they got it."

Herewith, the actual joke:

"This mushroom walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a beer. The bartender says, 'I can't serve you, you're a mushroom!' And the mushroom responds, 'But I'm a FUN GUY!'"

Get it?

Fun guy?

Fungi...fungus...........

The mushroom is a fungus.....

Yeah, it's a knee-slapper all right. And it will FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER bring a smile to my face because it's the only time in the last 20 years that Lauren has been wrong about something and it endeared her to me SO MUCH back then and still does! :)

"But I'm a fun kind of guy!!"

Hahahahahahahaha!!!

Love ya, Laur!!

The Aging of Sally Field

This is probably going to appeal to less than 1% of my readers and the ONE person I know would enjoy it is still stuck with the abacus of internet access and will be unable to watch the videos. Sorry, Moo....

So for the other random person who Googled "Sally Field" earlier and stumbled on my blog, are you the least bit concerned about her appearance in the Boniva commercials? It just struck me the other day -- and hard -- and here's why...

Thanks to an endless loop of syndicated sitcoms during summer days in the 70s and 80s, I was able to develop a couch potato obsession with the TV show, Gidget. To this day, I find myself humming and/or singing the theme song:

Catchy, isn't it? Gidget was an awkward tomboy with an awesome Dad and I just ate up every episode.

Next up for Sally was The Flying Nun, which thanks to the wonder of TV reruns, was seen by me years before I ever saw an episode of Gidget. And frankly, I couldn't tell you what the premise was beyond the fact that her character's name was Sister Bertrille and she could fly thanks to the giant wings of her habit's cornette (yes, I had to look that up). Oh, but check out these special effects!!

When we next saw Sally, she shocked the world by doing a little sexy turn in Smokey and the Bandit and by bedding the film's very hairy man-whore lead, Burt Reynolds, in real life. Scandalous!

This movie is also notable for single-handedly starting the Trans Am and CB radio craze of the late 70s (for more on this, please see Breaker Breaker 1-9).

And now......... Sally got old. She's a constantly meddling, constantly worrying matriarch on Brothers & Sisters and she's doing Boniva commercials. I was hoping to find the current one, where she's sitting on a dock and they've got her in a pair of Chuck Taylors in a desperate attempt to distract us from the fact that she's selling an osteoporosis medicine, but couldn't. But this one'll give you the general idea:

I don't know why it's bugging me, but it is. Who knew I'd start to sense my own mortality from the aging of Sally Field, Sesame Street's 40th birthday last week, and spotting my old Swatch watch in an antique store on Friday. Yes, it's true. How the hell did a Swatch from 1985 become an antique??!!

Chicken Pot Pie and I Don't Care!

And so a fabulous weekend comes to a close. It's a blur of consignment shops, college football, bars (conga lines!), brunch, and good, good friends. There are some moments in time that I know I'm truly blessed and this is one of them.

We ended the weekend with about 12 friends sharing Sunday Dinner together. It's something I've wanted forever and so appreciate finally having. I think we may try to make it into a regular thing -- I hope so...

And, it's time for me to snooze, my friends.

To be continued...................

And hey, what's up with the swatches?!

Ack. It's another iPhone blog post. I'm so sorry, you guys! But I will say that I'm out with good friends and having a good time, so you're just going to have deal.

Hunter adds, "Big D, little r," relative to a Punnett's square... :)

Sense and Cents-Ability

I'm sleepy after an absolutely great day and had planned on writing about that a little bit, but I just activated AdSense for my page and may babble about that for a minute instead...

A friend asked the other day if I was using it on my blog. I admitted that I had heard of it, but did not have it on here. She encouraged me to check it out, so I did. Essentially, I allow Google to run advertisements on my blog and if people click on the ads, I receive money.

Seems like a no-brainer, right? Except look at my blog now. It's all messy and I feel like I've sold out. So what are your thoughts, dear readers? Part of me feels like I'd be stupid to not receive some financial compensation for all this writing, but another part of me knows that I have the blog because I enjoy it, not for financial gain.

And again, look at it! I'm not crazy about this. What say you?

As an aside, in case she ever reads this, thanks dear friend for a great day. I look forward to fixing up my house and stocking it with the hundreds of treasures you showed me today. And I will never buy those cheesy-ass disposable grocery store salt and pepper shakers again! :)

185

And.......here we are again at New Belmont, despite all my protestations to the contrary. I was really looking forward to a hangover-free Friday and am going to do my best to accomplish this even though I'm hanging with the kickballers!

I got stumped earlier by an old improv game and must redeem myself! So here we go...

The suggestion is "Navy."

185 seamen walk into a bar and ask the bartender for a beer and the bartender says, "Holy crap, talking semen!!"

OK, they can't all be funny, but once again I've satisfied my blogging obligation on a Thursday night... :)

My Own Private Idaho

My coworkers, Jerry and Luke, and I were coming back from lunch today when I spotted this short older woman who works for one of the other departments in our building. I said, "Eh, there's the woman who saw me pooping..." and Jerry chuckled. Luke, who apparently had never heard the story said, "Whaaat??"

And herewith, Tha Poopin' Story:

I am normally physically unable to defecate if there are other humans within a 5 mile radius of my tuckus. So it takes a certain emergency for me to even consider doing so at work. Imagine my glee when I discovered a single occupancy terlet two floors below ours at work! I called it "My Own Private Idaho" and only told a select few of its location for fear word would spread and I'd lose my beloved privacy.

So it came upon an afternoon clear that I had to make a somewhat speedy jog down to my restroom of respite. Now, trips down there weren't entirely without stress as anyone spotting me coming or going knew that I didn't belong on that floor and therefore probably knew what I was up to. I'm paranoid about my pooping, can you tell??

I pulled a little "Mission: Impossible" down the back staircase and zipped in undetected. For reasons still unknown to me, after locking the door I decided I needed to check it by turning the doorknob. The door was locked and I breathed a sigh of relief. I took my appointed seat on the throne and discovered that my shyness had gotten the best of my bowels.

I have a little theory in times like this -- I think it's best to align the plumbing, as it were. So I sat back a little bit in an effort to get a straight chute going and turned to my left to read the packaging on the extra roll of bathroom tissue resting on the handicap rail. "Hmmm....safe for septic tanks," I thought, just as the door popped open and this incredibly short woman sized me up -- and down.

I'm guessing she exclaimed an "Oh!" as she hurriedly closed the door. Well, there was no chance I was going to be able to take care of business at this point! Not only had some woman just busted in on me, the damn door was unlocked so it could happen again!! (FYI, if you're ever in our building -- the doorknobs unlock when turned from the inside. When I checked the lock, I unlocked the door. Poopie!)

But in the meantime, I said the first thing that popped into my horrified brain: "I'm sorry!!! I thought it was locked........." trailed after her as she scurried down the hallway in horror. (I didn't actually see this part, but I think it's a fair assumption).

It's a true reflection of my sense of humor that once I had composed myself I started laughing and COULD NOT WAIT to get upstairs to tell my close friends Anne and Don! When I relayed the story to Voldemort and told her about Anne and Don's reactions, she was appalled that I had told them. And that, my friends, is an example of an uptight wet blanket.

Don was kind enough to take a really bad photo of me and place it on a doorknob sign he created which read, "Shhh...Pooping in Progress" for my and my building-mates' protection.

I see the little poop-buster on occasion and I always wonder if she recognizes me. I had to have appeared much shorter to her the first time we met and I'm hoping she was mildly blinded by what she witnessed and that the image wasn't instead burned on her retinas. I just can't tell when I see her. I'm hoping I don't become so obsessed with knowing that I finally break down and ask her. 'Cause how's that going to go?

"Hey, remember that time you walked in on me pooping?!"

And no, I've been unable to seal the deal at work ever since. And we have Indian food at least once a week. Sphincter of steel, baby, sphincter of STEEL!!!

Are You Talkin' to Me?

Day 3, baby!! And it's gonna be a lean one. I've had a day from H-E-double hockey sticks (I'm thinking I need to keep it relatively clean after yesterday), have a raging headache (this is actually news since this may be my 7th headache in 40 years), and despite the length of this sentence, am not in a writerly way this evening....

Has anyone else noticed that children today are at a decided disadvantage when trying to evaluate the sanity of someone in public? Back when I was a kid -- when a phone was a telephone and maize yellow and hefty and mounted to the wall and the receiver could be used as a weapon -- anyone seen babbling out loud in public was clearly mad. That was a no-brainer. You didn't have to evaluate their clothing, their hygiene, the volume or content of the discussion... You knew if you saw someone talking to himself or herself and coming your way on the sidewalk to CROSS THE STREET.

The advent of cell phones and connected ear buds required a split second check for a wire hanging from an ear. I wasn't crazy about the loss of flight time, but I evolved and began a two-step process: hear the person, check for the wire. OK, not that big of a deal.

But then along came Bluetooth. Now when someone's carrying on a conversation with their imaginary friend -- and if they have a decent head of hair -- it can take MINUTES to evaluate whether the speaker is on the phone or stark raving mad. Some poor kid is going to get knifed by a wackadoodle stranger because they will have NO IDEA that it's not normal for people to talk to themselves loudly!

I was at Costco today and some woman was yelling at the conveyor belt in front of her. My fight or flight response was immediately triggered -- because I grew up when I did -- but then I eased up ASSUMING that she was on the phone. But was she?? I don't really know.

Maybe there should be an "I'm not crazy, I'm talkin' on my Bluetooth" hat that people have to wear to assuage the fears of the rest of us...

Or at least mine. :)

It's No 2-4-6-8-Who-Do-We-Appreciate...

Day 2 of NaBloPoMo. Feeling strong. OK, that's a lie. I'm feeling more than a little sick to my stomach, but that has nothing to do with NaBloPoMo.

You always hurt the ones you love. Spread the word. ;)

In the meantime, here's a sweet little story from Saturday night:

My friends and I went to the ODU football game on Halloween. Two of my friends, Michele and Greg, dressed up as Daphne and Fred from Scooby Do for the game. They looked pretty damn funny actually -- especially when so few people were dressed up at the game.

We were walking back to Michele's house after the game and we ran into a pack of people that they know. There seemed to be a delay of game due to one especially drunken female and when I circled back to find out what was going on, I discovered Drunk Girl had stolen Greg's Fred wig and was wearing it. Michele said they were trying to get it back to no avail and whispered to me, "Get the wig."

Well, I'm Michele's official Lesbian. There are certain duties (yes, I said doody) that come along with this. I threatened Greg within an inch of his life when they began dating. I've gotten involved in fights for Michele with no information other than the fact that someone was bothering her. I play tough girl to her delicate flower on occasion. And on Saturday night, I had to go in after the wig.

It seemed simple enough. I walked up to the girl, plucked the wig off her head, and took off running down the street, waving the wig as if it was a flag. I heard her screech, "Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch!!!!!" after me as I went running, but I apparently missed the best part.

She turned to her friends -- including the true culprits, Michele and Greg -- and yelled, "Get the wig back!!"

And when someone asked who had it, she screamed the following:

That bitch!
That cunt!
She smells like fish!!








Really, what is there to say after that? I apologize for the coarse language, but if I had thrown in an asterisk or two, you wouldn't have gotten the full effect.

Yeah.

Michele, not being anyone's Lesbian and therefore under no obligation to defend, apparently doubled over and busted a gut laughing after Drunk Girl's pronouncement. I have to say, I laughed pretty damn hard after they told me about it as well. And I did enjoy everyone back at Michele's house chanting over and over again, "You bitch. You cunt. You smell like fish!!"

For the record, I don't think I smell like fish. There's a lesbian dating joke in there, but I'll let it go since I've obviously already offended your sensibilities.

The good news is, I think my kickball team has a new cheer!! Woo!!!

Until Day 3, my friends. :)

NaBloPoMo Mad Libs!

Dang, it's only 5pm and it's dark out. All hail the end of Daylight Saving Time. Poopie.

In other news, I successfully completed the October blog posting challenge and today is the offical beginning of NaBloPoMo!!

Alas, I'm not feeling so hot, so I'm going to need a little help from you folks today on the first entry. I've decided to make it a Mad Lib. Fill in the blanks with the recommended word type and see what you and your friends can come up with. Oh boy! :)

Today is the first day of [noun]. I will be [adjective] to write a [noun] each and every day in [month]. I've submitted my [noun] to www.nablopomo.com and will be [adjective] to win random [noun] as a result. There's also this cool [noun] called the Randomizer that [verb] people to [verb] other blogs at random. This little [noun] in Mad Libbing has [verb] me out and I'm going to finish watching The Sandlot now.